Remember the Alamo

While walking around Astor Place this morning... we were thinking that the crawler excavator was awfully close to the Alamo, aka the Astor Place cube... where work continues on the reconstruction of Astor Place...



Maybe someone else noticed...because workers later put up protective plywood around the Alamo for now...

Boarding up the cube at Astor place #nyc https://t.co/9l9UjyiY6E

— Chris Alexander (@alexandermania) October 15, 2014

And some day... the area will look like this...



Previously on EV Grieve:
Five years later, Astor Place apparently ready for its 2-year reconstruction project

This is what it might be like living inside the Alamo on Astor Place

Per the clip that appeared Monday on YouTube:

Dave is a creative writer who lives inside the iconic Astor Place Cube in New York City. The cube's 8X8 panels add up to 64 square feet which adds up to 512 cubic feet. For Dave, who is 5'8", that is plenty of space to move around, write, cook, sleep, work out and even play guitar. Dave uses a bicycle generator to power up the lights and a handful of electronic gadgets.

Cute enough, though it's not for real... per Business Insider:

The video appears to be an elaborate advertisement for WHIL, a company that promotes meditation in the business community, started by Lululemon Athletica founder Chip Wilson and his wife Shannon (a logo for WHIL appears at the end of the video.)

Analyzing Astor Place's mystery artwork

Well, this was sitting by the Cube this morning at Astor Place. (Via Twitter around 8 a.m.)



Another angle via @bomarrblog...



Guesses at what this is supposed to be included... Ziggy, a Cheeto/Cheeseball, a nipple and a gift for Emperor Palpatine.

[Updated Again!] Astor Place cube pranked

Our friends at Welcome to the Funhouse spotted this early today ...

Credit then to the the Caltech Prank Club ...?

Yes, it has been turned into a Weighted Companion Cube ...

@mylestanzer noted that the Astor Place cube police have removed the gag...

Runnin' Scared has more on all this here.

Yarn-hater de-yarns the Astor Place cube

That was sort of fast... a little bit ago some kind of worker started cutting off Agata Olek's latest yarn creation...

[Via @ArtObserved]

Booo! And here are some shots from earlier in the day by East Village resident Beep Iams (@beepiams) ...

Watch Agata Olek cover the Astor Place cube in yarn

This morning, we posted photos of the Astor Place Cube now covered in yarn courtesy of artist Agata Olek... Here she is in Astor Place. Photos by peter radley.

And here is the video of how she did this...

RIP Tony Rosenthal, the sculptor who created the Astor Place cube

Charlie Finch has the feature at Artnet:

Tony Rosenthal, the sculptor of the revolving black cube on Astor Place, died over the weekend at age 94. For myself and thousands of other East Villagers, this was the work of art that touched (and was touched by) us most. The memories of Village life revolve with it.

I first felt Alamo (the name of the cube) soon after it was installed in 1967. Coming home from concerts at the Fillmore East, guys would spin it to impress their girls then hop the subway for points north and south.

Here's the cube circa 1970 (Via)



After it was tagged in April 2006 (Via)